Dark Ages
by Ansuz
Summary: Fallout 3 one-shot. Kathy just wanted to take care of her dog. It was simple. Harmless. So why did the human race feel the need to screw that up, too?


**Warning**: Violence, swearing, and character death. But mostly swearing.

Disclaimer: The awesomeness that is Fallout 3 doesn't belong to me. I make no money from this.

This was actually based on an experience I had in the Arlington Library. Goddamn raiders! I kill you!

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_Dark Ages  
_

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Kathy shoved all the books off the desk and threw her motorcycle helmet against the wall. It smacked against the concrete with an anticlimactic thud. Dust hung in the air like winter mist and she wasn't sure if she was choking on that or tears.

"_Fuck_."

Of all the goddamn things to get upset over....

She kneeled beside Dogmeat and stroked his bony flank. It had been a clean shot, at least, quick and painless. No better way to go in the Wastelands. A sharp whoop echoed from down the hall, quickly silenced by the rhythmic purr of a minigun. It made her feel a little better knowing people were dying. Made the mood a little easier to justify. Fucking raiders. The next one she saw was going to die real nice and slow.

Someone was standing in the doorway.

Kathy glanced over her shoulder. A paladin filled the door, unreadable and blank in his power armour. How the hell did they move so quietly? She wiped her nose with the back of her hand only to get snot all over it. "They shot my dog," she snapped defensively and scrubbed her eyes. When she looked again two more members of the Brotherhood were there—a woman and another man. Just staring.

She sucked in a deep breath and stood up. "Look, I know this is usually your line," she kept her voice steady as she picked up her helmet and put it on, "but could you guys kindly fuck off?"

There started shifting like they were talking to each other. She didn't doubt they had a discrete channel just between themselves. The first one stepped forward. "We need to clear this room, Outsider."

"It's cleared."

More shifting. They looked a little pissed off.

"Oh. That's just a nice way of saying get out or we'll cap you, is it?" Kathy snorted, feeling wrung out, and studied the nearest minigun. "Fine." She bent down and picked up Dogmeat's cooling corpse, and had the satisfaction of seeing them straighten, shocked. "Now get out of my way."

They parted for her with barely restrained irritation and flooded the room when she was in the hall, and continued to clear each accessible point after that. Kathy managed to make it through the next door before she had to put Dogmeat down and rest. He was beginning to smell. God, she needed a stimpak. But she had wasted almost all her caps on the good doctor after a mine nearly relieved her of both legs and left arm.

She had gotten 30 seconds of privacy before one of the Brotherhood stepped through the door. They stared at each other for 4 heartbeats. It had to be the first Paladin she'd met. His body language was the most unreadable.

"I'm just resting, Roland." She waved airily. "Gimme a minute."

"Move al...." His head jerked back, as if no one had deviated from the script before. "Roland?"

It was, admittedly, a really nerdy joke.

"You call me names, I call you names." Kathy hefted Dogmeat up and stumbled down the stairs. "It's infallible logic."

Jesus Christ. Had she really just said that? It had to be the bullet wounds. The shock. The blood. The dead fucking dog in her arms.

The lower floor of the library was a mess. Corpses littered the ground. All of them raiders. She took extra care not to step on anything with Roland following her around like another Dogmeat, but a hot thread of satisfaction coiled in her stomach. Served those bastards right. The whole room reeked of b.o. and blood and raw guts, and justice or not, she needed to get out or she'd be sick.

And that, of course, prompted everything to go to hell.

The first shot echoed clean and hard, and hit Kathy like a sucker punch to the back of the head. She fell to the meaty drum of her heartbeat, face buried in Dogmeat's matted fur. Roland stepped over her without a glance. The smooth rumble of his gun mixed with her pulse. A nice tune to die to.

Empty casings fell like raindrops. Muzzle flash cleaved the gloom like lightning.

It was like people in the old videos. A beer in one hand, hotdog in the other, all settled down on the deck to watch the storm go by. And then it would hit and everybody would go quiet as the wind changed....

"Outsider."

Somebody smacked her.

"Ow, Jesus fuck." Kathy sucked in a mouthful of air and nearly vomited then and there. Her vision swam for a moment, then eventually came back into focus. Rolandus stood over her with blood spattered across his armour. He rifled through her old backpack and, despite everything she had learned in the last six months, she didn't stop him. She just didn't care.

Roland dropped the bag in disgust. "You have no medical supplies."

"Well," Kathy sighed heavily, "no shit."

He regarded her for a moment, helmet tilted to the side. She recognized the air of indecision around him. Hell, she'd had a few moments like that herself. Give purified water to a dying man or keep it for yourself. Free captives or leave them behind.

Save someone or let them die.

Roland bent down and produced a single stimpak from his own pocket. He grabbed her arm and jabbed the needle deep into her bicep. The familiar rush of heat lessened the pain in Kathy's gut. It wasn't enough to heal her, but it would get her walking. She took a few moments to brace herself and stood up in a single, agonizing movement. Everything went mute, apocalyptic white, and then slowly faded to colour again.

"Thanks." Kathy mopped the sweat from her forehead. "I mean...goddamn." Her hands shook. "Thank you."

Roland simply walked past her. "Keep moving."

"Yeah, yeah." She picked up her backpack and threw it over one shoulder where it clinked comfortably against her combat shotgun. Dogmeat lay sprawled across the body of a raider with pigtails. That bitch with a rocket launcher. Kathy spat on her and dragged her dog towards the stairwell. It was hard. Really fucking hard. She had three bullets and one stimpak in her system. The math buzzed in the back of her head and for once she wanted to turn on the radio.

The stairs were tricky. Kathy fell on her ass twice. Luckily, none of the Brotherhood happened to be nearby. A cloud of dust clotted the air, but she managed to pull Dogmeat to the door that led to the lobby. Scribe Yearling spoke in soft, indecipherable tones that made Kathy's jaw ache. Fucking religious types.

Inhaling deeply, she hoisted Dogmeat over her shoulder and walked through. All of them glanced up at her, but none objected to her presence. She carefully walked down the stairs and onto the ground floor without a word. Yearling watched her for a moment, then said, "Remember our deal, Outsider." Kathy grunted, too out of breath for words.

To their credit, the Brotherhood wasn't completely full of assholes. A knight held the door open for her as she walked outside and didn't comment. The harsh sunlight forced her to shut her eyes, but she kept walking. Uneven pavement stabbed the thin soles of her shoes. Didn't matter. She just had to get away from the library. Bury Dogmeat.

Shit.

She slumped to the ground and let Dogmeat slip off her shoulder. An unpleasant pressure sat in her chest, less tangible than a bullet, but far more humiliating. They shot her dog. The one living thing in the Wastelands that didn't give a shit about caps or guns or blood. The one fucking source of unconditional _anything_ she had left, and some random bitch hopped up on Psycho and Big-Fucking-Guns had _shot him_.

Kathy would've laughed if it wasn't so pathetic. She'd killed people, left them to die, beat them to a bloody smear for survival, but now she was crying over a dog. Figured.

After a while, she was able to get down to business. The sun was hot as hell, but she started digging anyway. She had three bottles of dirty water left and drank them slowly as she dug. And dug. And dug. It was hard at first. The ground was bone-dry and if the conditions were right, sometimes formed glassy patches. But once she had broken through the top layer, the dirt became soft and dark and pretty fucking poisonous. She managed to dig two and a half feet before feeling sick. Her gauge hovered just under 400 rads. Survivable.

Sometimes a paladin would step outside and conduct a quick check of the parameter. None of them bothered her or stared for too long, which was fine with her. She wasn't in the mood for talk. When the sun had set, Dogmeat's grave was made official with a cross in a nearby rock. It wasn't poetic or any of that shit, but Kathy was certain nobody would go digging up her dog. And if there was a god up there, he better take good fucking care of him.

Kathy saw Roland instead of heard him. The guy was a fucking ninja. He set down a single bottle of purified water and walked away without a word. She didn't know whether to scream or laugh. She must have looked like absolute shit if the _Brotherhood_ was going soft on her.

In the end, she just drank the water. It was going to be a damn long walk to Rivet City.

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Roland: A paladin and leader of the Twelve Peers.

To any who care, I reset the game out of principle. Long live Dogmeat!


End file.
